English summaries July 1

Freiraum/quartier 21 Faceless part 1 04.07.2013 – 01.09.2013 Hide to be found By Stanislaus Medan If four openings of contemporary art shows take place on the same day the concurrency justifies a comparison. “Faceless”, the exhibition in the quartier 21, is remarkable because it presents more faces – even if they are veiled - than all of the other exhibitions combined. The art works deal with the paradox that despite people trying to avoid being seen, they – at the same time - want to be recognised. As the main source of personal identity faces form the central theme of the exhibition. The most surprising phenomenon is that the majority of the artists rob the faces of their recognition value. For this exhibition, curator Bogomir Doringer focussed on 9/11 and the ‘surveillance era’ that followed. Surveillance cameras, which recognise people by their face, are an explanation why this show concentrates on superimposed and veiled faces. And this association can only be appreciated if the only work, which is not presented in the exhibition but in the passageway next to the entrance, is understood as the beginning of a common thread that permeates the entire exhibition: the cameras are out of order but are still able to fulfil their function as generators of anxiety. Behind every corner, behind every silhouette one presumes a face, recalled in one’s imagination – an occupation that demands cognitive interaction and makes the exhibition worthwhile seeing. Freiraum / quartier 21 1070 Vienna, Museumsplatz 1 http://www.quartier21.at Opening hours: Tue – Sun 13 – 19 hours Galerie V&V Andrea MAXA Halmschlager (A) – Border Arabesques 06.06.2013 – 17.07.2013 Disciplined casual inter-trans-discipline By Aurelia Jurtschitsch Jewelry made of textiles, textile object art, special packaging design made of textile material? – An exciting mixture of creativity, meticulousness as well as laissez-faire inspired the current exhibition by the jewellery designer Andrea MAXA Halmschlager. The artist was inspired by a set of woven bands – a relic from her parents. She draws upon her own story, but this has nothing to do with an inner “reappraisal”, but an actual physical reconditioning of the material: a parallel stringing together, i.e. a meticulous welding of borders, each give or take one centimetre in width. It started with rose motives, but soon her repertoire “exploded” – both in motives as well as colours, on the front and the backside and the material mix with tulle. At first there were small tubes threaded onto necklaces or placed on a belt as an eye-catcher, but then a decisive impulse came from a different source: the arabesque shape, which Halmschlager acquired from her colleague Ute Neuber. In her most recent works, she presents a five-part set designed in this concrete ornamental format. These five individual pieces can be combined individually or with one another. Each one of these arabesques has a title, has a kind of certificate and only waits to inflame the fantasy of its usage. As a necklace, as a pendant on a pearl necklace, as an extravagant headdress, as… Galerie V&V 1010 Vienna, Bauernmarkt 19 Tel: +43 1 5356334 Fax: + 43 1 535 6334 Email: vundv@aon.at Opening hours: Tue, Wed 15.00 – 17.00 hours, Thu 15.00 – 20.00 hours, Fri-Sat 11.00 – 18.00 hours HilgerBROTKunsthalle, Galerie Hilger NEXT Wien 10 Cash, Cans & Candy 01.06.2013 – 14.09.2013 Subculture and mainstream By Margareta Sandhofer What started in Brooklyn and the Bronx in the subculture on the edge of legality with its provocative, often bright traces in public urban space, presents itself today in large galleries, auction houses, fairs, and museums across the globe – and is even considered an obligatory component of contemporary art. The spotlight from which the “sprayers” used to flee has long become their home. And: Street Art achieves breath-taking prices. The spectrum of its history is huge. From the underground to the salon – even if it's a salon on the outskirts of Vienna and a continuous construction site, such as the HilgerBROTKunsthalle and GALERIE HILGER NEXT in Vienna’s 10th district. But the seemingly never-ending reconstruction in the former Anker bread factory is an appropriate location, offering a symbolic background for the development of Street Art. Renovation and revitalisation, and foremost occupying the existing substance and imparting it with new functions, values and ideals is the bustling, loud and dusty context in which Ernst Hilger embeds his exhibition “Cash, Cans & Candy”. The Street Art presented here is in dynamic progress. The various trends have, in the meantime, developed their own dynamics, whose manifold facets cannot be clearly identified. The self-conception of the individual artists, their position in today’s art world and the works themselves have sometimes even abandoned the limits of Street Art. The participation of stars as well as unknown artists (still) active in subculture in “Cash, Can & Candy” offers a stimulating mixture. Among the 50 artists are, to name but a few: Stinkfish, Dan Witz, ROA, Brian McKee, Laura Ortiz Vega, Vasilena Gankovska and El Pez. Ernst Hilger’s remarkably acclaimed exhibition at should not blind us to the ambivalence of Street Art. It elucidates the pleasing, well-adjusted side, and is in stark contrast to the active scene in public space. Street Art artists are not only present in New York or other metropolises, but also in Vienna, in its underground tunnels or train stations, in their colourful continuously mutating diversity and contested aesthetics, anonymous, often driven by socio-political motivation and anarchist obsession. This, the other, the not civilized Street Art and graffiti scene is considered illegal, prosecuted for damage to property with spraying and punished with imprisonment. The exhibition at Hilger might be authentic; the scenario in the streets, in the tunnels and passages definitely is. HilgerBROTKunsthalle 1100 Vienna, Absberggasse 27 Tel: +43-1-512 53 15/13 Fax: +43-1-512 53 15/32 email: brot@brotkunsthalle.com http://www.brotkunsthalle.com Opening hours: Thu - Sat 12-18 hours Galerie Hilger NEXT Wien 10 1100 Vienna, Absberggase 27 Tel: +43 1 512 53 15 Fax: +43 1 513 91 26 email: ernst.hilger@hilger.at http://www.hilger.at/ Opening hours: Wed - Sat 12 - 18 hours

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